


The Girl Who Launched a Thousand Ships

by signalbeam



Category: Persona 4
Genre: AU, Community: badbadbathhouse, Friendship, Gen, Genderswap, Meta, Parody, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Girlji provides Yosuke a lesson in yuri fandom, shipping, and how to piss off all your friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl Who Launched a Thousand Ships

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the bathhouse: _I'd like to see an AU fic with a female Souji, where Soujiko is a rabid yuri and shoujo ai fan, who is internally pairing and shipping all of her female friends together. Probably to the point where she herself eiher has no romantic feelings for anyone, or just chooses not to concentrate on them because ~ <3 OMG KAWAII GIRLS LOVE~!! is just WAY too appealing. _
> 
> _For maximum hilarity, I request that Yosuke, (who, like for the male protagonist is Best bro friend forever) is the one that finds out._

Yosuke believed that friends should be extended certain privileges. He didn’t mean anything too outlandish (Chie would kill him—not that he had been thinking of anything outlandish to begin with). Just the basic stuff: phone calls, long phone calls, the occasional visit to each other’s houses and a right to see each other’s rooms. Nothing too far out. When he said this to Shizuka, her face went funny. She was probably curdling like milk on the inside, but was maintaining a stony exterior.

“…” said Shizuka. She continued to say that for a bit. Then she said, “No.”

“Come on, Shizuka, it’s not like you have anything—”

“No,” said Shizuka as she stuffed her books into her bags.

“Wait. Don’t tell me… you haven’t cleaned your room?” Yosuke winked. “Well, that’s not so bad. I mean, you’ve seen my room, right?”

“It’s terrible.”

“Your room?” Yosuke said.

“No,” Shizuka said. “Yours.”

“That just means that we need to make things right,” Yosuke said. “You know, bare everything. Show all. You see a bit of mine, I see a bit of… never mind. So I can come?”

“Yosuke—”

Shizukaaaa…”

She frowned at him. Then she sighed and said, “It’s embarrassing.”

“What?” Yosuke said. “Your room?”

“No,” she said. “Your whining.”

 

*

In true Shizuka fashion, it took them an extra hour to make it to Shizuka’s house because she stopped to feed some cats. She would’ve gone fishing, too, if Yosuke hadn’t dragged her out of the floodplains. The first thing Shizuka did when they got to her house was offer Yosuke a glass of expired milk. He marched up to her room without choking down any of that weird… yogurt… thing. If he hadn’t stopped her, then she would’ve drunk it, instead.

“So this is your room,” he said.

It was… strangely empty. The only thing that showed that someone lived in the room was the pile of magazines and books and manga on the coffee table. He turned left and saw two large robots looming over the room on the top shelf, and all sorts of different ships and robots and tanks beneath the robots. It was kind of like a shrine, yet somehow… not.

“Uh,” said Yosuke.

“A man asked me to make them.”

“Yeah, that’s so convincing,” Yosuke muttered. “You like gunpla? Who would’ve thought. Then again, it does make a lot of sense. You are kind of a control freak.”

“Don’t go too close,” Shizuka said.

“Huh? Why—”

He found out when he accidentally poked himself in the eye with the barrel of the red robot’s gun. “Ow!”

“You hurt Agni,” Shizuka said, audibly upset.

The robots had _names_?

“Make sure you don’t hurt Brahman, either.”

“Oh my god,” Yosuke groaned.

Shizuka cleared her throat uncomfortably and said, “That’s why I didn’t want you in my room. Because you’d wreck Agni or Brahman. Or worse, both.”

“… Seriously, Shizuka?”

Her eyes shifted. “Yes.”

Yosuke blinked hard. Well, there were weirder things out there. He sat on the couch and shifted a magazine from underneath his butt. “What’s this?” Yosuke said. “A robot magazine or something?”

“… Ah, well…”

Yosuke flipped over to the cover. _sweetandSOURSPICY: delicious girl’s love blooming between the—_

“What the hell?!”

“I’m going to get some tea.” Shizuka quickly vanished downstairs while Yosuke gaped at the collection. All of it was the same kind of stuff: some of it chaste, some of it… some of it… not. A lot of it not. She sure did have a lot of… stuff. In fact, a quick flip through some of the issues showed that a lot of it was just straight up… stuff. Seriously skeevy stuff. Stuff like “Oh, onee-sama!” and rosaries and what the fuck was this incest or—

“So you like the Marimite doujin?” Shizuka said, appearing right over Yosuke’s shoulder.

“Fuck!” Yosuke yelped.

“I like it, too,” she said. “The conventional pairings are nice, but what I really like to do is to explore the potential for group orgies, especially since they’re crowded in the Rose Mansion for most of the afternoon and when you think about it, a group so focused on tradition probably has some unique hazing rituals. So I began to think what kind of rituals they might have and the answer seemed obvious enough: they would—”

“I’m not really,” Yosuke said, his jaw a little unhinged. “I mean, it’s—uh, anime, right? It’s not really hot unless two real girls are doing it.”

“I have some tapes of—”

“You were serious?!”

“You’re right. We should start out with some manga. You’d probably like something more action-oriented, like—Yukiko-san would like this one.”

“Which one?” Yosuke said, trying to keep his cool. Hanging around Shizuka could be surprisingly stressful, for a bro. Probably because she was a girl bro, not to be mistaken for a girl bra.

“Evolutionary Fish Girl Otenba,” said Shizuka, pointing to a stack of doujins on top of the TV.

“How do you keep Nanako-chan from finding all of this?” Yosuke said.

“I told Dojima-san that I had certain needs during certain times.”

“Oh, _god_ , no!”

*

Yosuke thought it’d be okay if Shizuka had an otaku habit. Sure, it was a little… weird (he was really, really glad that Shizuka didn’t have a Shadow because _what the hell_ ) but it was in the realm of normalcy. A small little island of normalcy in a sea of weird, sure, but it’d be something sane. Yosuke didn’t bother asking much about the hobby to learn more. He didn’t need to ask. Shizuka dragged him into it without bothering to ask how he felt. Soon he knew just about every detail about her taste in anime and manga and—okay, some of it was interesting, but he missed the days when it was like there was nothing in her head, because at least then she wasn’t gushing over the purity of love in this one series or another. Ironic, considering the stuff she had, piled up in boxes and crowded in her closet. (Her closet. _Ha._ )

Yosuke learned a few things:  
1.) Shizuka’s tastes were inclusive.  
Corollary: Which was to say as far as standards went, she really didn’t have any.  
2.) She mostly collected porn doujin.  
Addendum 1: She had a lot more scans on her computer.  
Addendum 2: Since she was missing a lot of conventions over the year, she had her… her internet… pals scan or send her doujin instead.  
Corollary: Not to say that everything she owned had sex in it, but it sure felt like it.  
3.) The thought didn’t turn Yosuke on at all.  
Corollary 1: That didn’t mean he was gay, damn it.  
Corollary 2: No, seriously, it didn’t.

For what it was worth, he did find out that she had a boyfriend in the city named Harumitsu that she periodically forgot about. They had similar hobbies. The boyfriend’s involved a lot of leather.

All of that would’ve been—kind of normal if he hadn’t asked her what she thought of the other girls. He hadn’t been expecting anything. Hell, he had been expecting a, “Oh… yes, they’re quite skillful” at best, because that was what Shizuka always said about people. All it had been was an innocent question. An innocent question that bore way, way too many answers.

*

“First off,” Shizuka said while they were in her room, “Chie-san and Yukiko-san are the most obvious pairing looking at it from the outsider’s perspective. They’re steeped in a tradition that goes all the way back to The Roses of Versailles, with the princes and the castles and the frilly costuming. I think the princess/knight motif works better for them, since prince can sometimes mean overbearing prick instead of protective lug and Chie-san would make a wonderful white knight figure, but since prince is what her Shadow gave us to work with, we’re going to have to go along with that for the sake of canonical integrity. It’s good in some ways because it means that they’re equals in status. Partners. A bit like us,” she added, as though she hadn’t made it obvious before. “Except that they’re both women.”

“Yeah, I got that the first time around,” Yosuke said, cracking the chestnuts with a nutcracker. Why bother doing all this by hand, he wondered. He could just give them to Chie and have her kick the nuts apart. She sure did that a lot to him.

“And if you pair off Chie and Yukiko, then that leaves Naoto-kun and Rise-chan,” Shizuka said. “They have the opposites attract thing going for them, but some people would argue that it’s not real yuri. I think Rise-chan’s a bit too flighty to commit to any one person just yet. She’s a heartbreaker. It’ll make for a nice anthology story in a few years, once she’s matured and the art’s gotten better—”

“Art?”

“Her face, I meant.”

“Don’t let her hear that,” Yosuke said.

“If you wanted to, you could try mixing things up within the team,” Shizuka said. “I contemplated the dynamics of Naoto and Yukiko and Naoto and Chie, and I like both of them, but that’s because Naoto has that silly nickname and there’s a lot of fodder to go off of from there—”

“My hand hurts,” Yosuke whined.

“And then comes the possibilities of the people I know outside of school,” she said, blithely ignoring Yosuke. “After all, it’s not as though they’ve never met before, and it wouldn’t be too difficult for them to form a connection with one another…”

Yosuke wanted to die. Painfully.

*

“When it’s all been said and done, I think they should just try to break free of the two-person mold,” said Shizuka. “That’ll make things easier for everyone, shipping-wise.”

Yosuke contemplated eating one of the unroasted chestnuts. Then he said, “So where do you factor into any of this?”

“Hmm?” Shizuka said.

“Well, you’re a girl, too, right? And… you’re… kind of… I mean, you know. Other… Other teamly tendencies and stuff.”

“Oh,” said Shizuka. “I don’t really have any interest in that kind of thing right now. It’s sexier when you can’t interfere with it, isn’t it?”

Yosuke felt himself soaring through the wind, and then crashed back into reality. “Don’t most girls obsess over guys?” he said. He remembered visiting the anime section of 2ch and seeing a lot of… interesting comments on last summer’s hit show.

“I like moe better than I like the hyper-stylized shoujo art that’s popular in yaoi and boy’s love.”

“Huh?”

“Moe,” Shizuka said, and popped an unroasted and unopened chestnut into her mouth. A second of choking and coughing later, she spat out the chestnut and said, “What do you think?”

“Of what?”

“Does it make you burn?”

“Does it make you?” Yosuke shot back.

“No,” said Shizuka.

“Well, they don’t make me burn, either!”

“Okay,” said Shizuka, and opened up one of her magazines.

“Don’t read that stuff in front of me!”

“This magazine’s all foreplay, though—oh, no, they aren’t.” She tilted her head. “Huh. I guess not. They recently moved from quarterly to bi-monthly, so maybe this is their way of getting more subscribers.”

“What does Harumitsu-san think of any of this?” said Yosuke. “I mean, he has to think this is a little weird, right…”

“Who?”

“Your boyfriend, right?”

“No,” Shizuka said, thumbing through the magazine with a bored look on her face. “Haru-chan’s just my provider, that’s all.”

What the hell?

*

“… Anyway, Ayane-san and Naoto-kun should get along pretty well. It’s a dynamic where Naoto-kun won’t complain so much about being so handsome.”

“Poor Naoto-kun,” Yosuke said. “For being so handsome. You just want her all to yourself.”

“I think Naoto-kun has nice slashing potential, but it really depends on how you look at it. Rise-chan can be a playgirl and try everyone out, but Yukiko-san is pretty scary, too… If she gets really aggressive, then she could probably take everyone on in a few hours, but of course…”

*

Five hours later, Yosuke staggered into Chie’s house and collapsed on her couch. His ears were ringing. It was like the vuvuzelas, back when Japan got kicked out of the World Cup in their match against Paraguay: if he let his mind wander too far, he could hear the familiar buzz. Only instead of being in B flat, it was Shizuka explaining the best ways to slash their mutual female friends together—not to mention a few of her stranger fantasies.

“Um, Yosuke?” Chie said. “My _mother’s_ home. Go back to your own house and sleep there, okay?”

“Chie,” Yosuke groaned. “It’s a disaster. You have to have sex to save me.”

“I—Yosuke, you’re going _down_!”

*

“Sure, I’ve seen her room,” Chie said when she no longer felt like denting Yosuke’s forehead. “What about it?”

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” said Yosuke.

“Well, everyone has to have a hobby. I mean, at least we know what she does at night, right?”

“Oh, god.”

“Yosuke!” Chie’s face went red, and in response, so did Yosuke’s. He couldn’t help it. When Chie went red-faced, it often meant that Yosuke would be going red soon, too. It was like his own personal alarm system. “I’m talking about her robot collection! What did you _think_ I was talking about?”

“Her _other_ collection,” he said, and then got slapped on the back of the head. “Augh! Seriously, I mean it!”

“This is Shizuka we’re talking about!” said Chie. “I mean, she’s not exactly the most… I’ve never even seen her look at a guy before.”

“That’s because she likes looking at girls,” said Yosuke. “And she likes to imagine you all doing weird stuff to each other—”

“Yosuke!”

“It’s true! That’s what I mean when I say that you and Yukiko need to do something, because otherwise—”

“Okay, that’s it,” Chie said, grabbing Yosuke by the hair.

“Hey—hey, wait—auugh, my head?!”

“You’re _out of here_ , buddy!”

*

“Ah, Yukiko-san…”

“Hmm?” Yukiko said.

“Has Shizuka ever said anything strange to you?” he said.

“Strange?” Yukiko said.

“Yeah,” Yosuke said. “I mean, stuff like… uh.” On second thought, maybe it was better not to say anything, lest he accidentally press his Wrath of Chie speed dial. “Uh. The. Next midterm or something like that.”

“Yosuke!” Chie shouted from the hall. Holy shit, could that girl _see through walls_? “What are you doing to Yukiko?!”

“I was just leaving,” Yosuke said, and exited the room just as the bell rang for the beginning of class.

*

“Oh, Yosuke-senpai,” Rise giggled. “It’s not weird at all! I mean, they’re all cute, and I’ve seen them in swimsuits. If I were Shizuka-senpai, I’d want to do them, too.”

“No,” Yosuke said. “I don’t think you understand.”

“Huh?”

“She’s… she’s… _shipping_.”

“Sorry, Yosuke-senpai, I didn’t quite hear you there. What did you say she’s doing?”

“She’s picturing you having sex,” Yosuke said. “With someone else.”

“Oh, _senpai_ ,” Rise said. “I do that all the time, too. Like you and Kanji-kun. Or Kanji-kun and Naoto-kun. Or Riddle-senpai and pinkfro-senpai. Or maybe…”

*

“Ah, so you’ve learned of our leader’s…” Naoto expression became strained. “Predilections.”

“Yeah,” Yosuke said. “Just to be clear, we’re not talking about her robot collection, right?”

“Of course not,” said Naoto. “There’s nothing wrong with collecting robots.”

“So you’re that kind of person, too,” said Yosuke. “Well, no one’s perfect…”

“I beg your pardon?” Naoto said. Uh-oh. The frown she normally had just went from ‘mildly upset’ to ‘Yosuke-senpai, you’re an idiot.’ “Well, in any case, we should turn our attentions to dealing with this… problem.”

Whoa. Naoto was serious about this.

“Yeah,” Yosuke said. “I agree. So what should be our first step?”

“I believe first confronting her would be the best way to initiate things,” Naoto said. “I’ve attempted subtlety and innuendo, but senpai seems particularly skillful at evading the subject. Furthermore, I did not wish to tarnish her reputation.”

“How long have you known?” Yosuke said.

“I first encountered her engaging in those… activities while I was investigating the disappearance of Rise-san,” said Naoto. “Though I’d rather not admit it. I considered using it at blackmail material.”

“Does she know you know?” Yosuke said.

“I’ve yet found an opportunity to bring it up,” said Naoto. “Besides, it would be… compromising. Dojima-san will almost certainly be angry if he finds out where she’s been and what she’s been doing. Her very reputation is at stake. If it is known that Shizuka Seta is a… fast woman, than she may well be banned from the town, or worse, made a laughingstock in front of the entire populace and left to—”

“Wait, hold up,” Yosuke said. “Are we talking about the same things?”

Naoto frowned. “I assume we are discussing her unfortunate taste and obsession with pornography.”

“It’s a natural, healthy urge, okay,” Yosuke said. “Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean that having one or two magazines is going to corrupt her mind. And it’s not like she has a sex drive, anyway.”

“She has accumulated approximately eighty-six volumes of manga, entire magazine catalogues, and has a video collection that totals just under two hundred sixty-two hours worth of content,” said Naoto.

“…” said Yosuke, who was rapidly cataloguing his own collection.

“A true leader,” Naoto said grimly, “must be an example to all people.”

“Actually,” Yosuke said. “I think that it’s pretty normal, after all.”

*

Yosuke returned to Shizuka’s house and made himself some tea.

“I give up,” he told her. “Let’s watch one of your weird shows together.”

“Okay,” Shizuka said. “What kind of stuff do you like?”

“Dunno,” he said. “Pop in something you like, I guess.”

“Okay,” Shizuka said, opening her closet to reveal the full extent of her collection: floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall. No wonder she only had one change of clothes: she spent all of her money on this stuff instead. Yosuke briefly considered making a crack about the closet and her collection, but then decided not to. Anything that kept Nanako from finding it was fine in his book.

The DVD they were watching was something called “The Girl Who Fell From Hell.” Shizuka had a piece of paper and a pen out and was taking notes.

“If we’re quick about it, we can try to map out the dynamics of the relationship between the characters and to people we know,” Shizuka said. “It’ll definitely open up some interesting shipping possibilities.”

“Yeah,” Yosuke said. Making sense or having sanity didn’t even matter anymore. He figured that considering that his life involved flinging himself into a television and brushing up on his Jungian crackpot psychology every other week, watching girl’s love stuff with his best friend wasn’t that far out. “Yeah, definitely.”

“I’m glad that you came around,” Shizuka said. She put a sign on her door, presumably requesting some quiet time so she could satisfy her… needs. “It was lonely watching it on my own.”

“Hey, bros before hos, right?” Yosuke said, winking. “Not that you aren’t a ho.”

“Yes,” Shizuka said, settling next to him on the couch. “You aren’t not a ho, either.”

She pressed play, and Yosuke surrendered himself to his new hobby.


End file.
